We are into our annual slowdown in our printing schedule.

We try to have each issue of the Gypsy Journal printed and mailed by the middle of the month preceding the issue date, and five issues a year, we are usually able to meet that deadline. But every year, when it’s time to print the January-February issue, that schedule goes out the window. No matter where we are in the country or which newspaper we are using to do the printing, and no matter how far we plan ahead, we run into scheduling problems.

This is caused by several factors, including heavier than usual printing schedules, as stores are printing and mailing out special holiday advertising inserts, at the same time that press rooms are shorthanded as employees take vacation days. Because we are not a weekly or even monthly job on their schedule, we get shoved to the bottom of the pile while they take care of their regular customers’ needs. We understand it, we expect it, but it’s still frustrating.

So, like every year, the newest issue of the paper is going out later than we want it to. It’s at the printer now, and hopefully they’ll have it back to us early next week so we can get it mailed out. In the meantime, we appreciate everybody’s patience.

We have made a change to the way we do our printing, starting with this issue. Until now, we have used different printers in different locations around the country, wherever we happened to be when it was time to go to press. This has been problematic at times, and with the changes in the industry, it has only gotten worse. We never know what kind of quality we’re going to get with a new printer.

Another major problem is that the size of most newspaper pages is getting smaller and smaller, and we have resisted going to the newest size reduction. But, it has been increasingly hard to find newspapers that continue to print on our size paper at times. Last year we had to leave Alabama earlier than we had planned and drive all the way to south Texas to get printed, after last minute changes at the printer we had used in this region in the past. This year we thought that we’d have to go all the way back to Indiana from Washington, DC to get printed, when the newspaper we had planned to use switched paper sizes on us. Fortunately, we found a printer in Virginia at the last minute, but it was stressful.

So we have contracted with one of the newspapers who prints us in Michigan when we are in the Midwest to do all of our printing in the future. They have recently upgraded their systems and added the ability to allow us to upload our files to them via the internet, and once each issue is printed, they will ship it to us by truck.  They could actually handle our mailing too, but in addition to the papers we mail out, we also have several thousand extra printed of each issue, which we distribute as samples at RV rallies and RV parks we visit in our travels.

This will add quite a bit to our cost for each issue, but it will give us consistent quality from a printer we are comfortable with, and who understands our unique needs.  I’m sure we’ll have a glitch or two along the way, but we’re confident that in the long run, it will all work out.

I’m still adding new seminars to the schedule for our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally, March 7-11 in Yuma. I still have quite a few time slots to fill in, but it’s coming together. I have posted a very preliminary seminar schedule on our rally registration page to give you an idea some of the offerings we will have. Scroll down to the bottom of the page and check it out. We’ll have over 60 different seminars by the time we’re done, so there’s sure to be plenty to meet everybody’s interest. As I said, this is just a preliminary schedule, and there will be lots of changes and additions by the time the rally starts. Be sure to register early, we’re looking forward to seeing you there!

Thought For The Day – We can’t go back in time and have a different beginning, but we can start today to make a new ending for ourselves.

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When we checked into the Peace River NACO campground on Sunday the office was closed, so the ranger said to go up to the office anytime Monday morning and pay for our stay. Apparently “anytime” is first thing in the morning, because at 10 a.m. somebody was knocking on our door.

Since we seldom get to bed before 2 a.m., we don’t get up early, so by the time I threw on some clothes and got to the door, the person was driving away in a golf cart. After I brushed my teeth and combed my five or six hairs, I went to the office and paid for our stay. Geez, we’re here for fourteen days, it’s not like we were going to stiff them out of $70.

Over the years, we have gotten a lot of flack from other RVers who seem to be offended by our sleeping schedule. More than once some older RVer has said something about “lazy” people sleeping the day away. I usually tell them I’m not lazy, I was up late working hard so I could pay into Social Security so they can get their check next month. I mean, really, is it anybody’s business when we go to bed or get up, as long as we don’t make any noise or disturb them when we’re up and they’re in bed?

Since the rain had stopped and we had a nice blue sky overhead, even if it was still rather cool, we went down to check out the boat ramp to the Peace River, here at the campground. The river was nice and calm, and if it warms up some more, we want to get our kayaks wet.

Okay, maybe we want to get our kayaks wet! I saw a sign about alligators at Lake Hancock at the Orlando Thousand Trails, and that didn’t bother me. But snakes? That’s taking things a little bit too far! I’ve heard of people wrestling alligators, but this fat boy don’t do snakes!

The Spanish moss that hangs from the live oaks trees all over Florida is even on the palm trees here at the campground! 

Our South Dakota license plates and registration for the Explorer came yesterday. The nice folks at our mail service in Sioux Falls, Alternative Resources, handled all of the paperwork, got the plates and registration, and sent them to us by Priority Mail. Since the 30 day temporary plate from the dealer where we bought the SUV expired Saturday, I was glad the plates arrived.

After picking up the license plates in the office, we drove into town to make a stop at the post office to mail off an order, then on to WalMart for a few things, and back to the campground. As we were driving back to our RV site, we stopped to take a picture of this motorhome with steer horns mounted on the front end. I wonder if this guy is from Texas?

We spent the rest of the day at home. I answered e-mails, had a long exchange with a lady in Oklahoma who is looking at a used RV and was asking my advice because she had some concerns. After hearing them (105,000 miles on a 1999 gas powered Class A, many stains on the ceiling from obvious roof leaks, a musty smell inside the coach, a generator that would not start, and a broken windshield), I told her to run, not walk, away. She still wasn’t convinced, because at only $25,000 the seller tells her it’s a heck of a deal. Yes, it is. I’m just not sure if it’s a heck of a deal for him, or for her!

Thought For The Day – Good health is merely the slowest possible rate at which one can die.

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Okay, just what the heck is going on here? I came to warm, sunny Florida so I could sit on a beach and leer at all of the pretty girls in their skimpy bikinis, just like they show on all of the travel posters. And what happens? I get here and it’s so darned cold that the only creatures on the beach are penguins, and the girls are at home wearing sweat suits, bundled up in down comforters, huddled around space heaters! Where are those bikinis I came here to see? I was promised bikinis! Heads will roll!

As I wrote in yesterday’s blog, we scrubbed our plans to go to the Keys, and instead drove from Fort Lauderdale to the Peace River NACO preserve at Wauchula. We left Paradise Island about 8:30 a.m., stopped for fuel and to hook up the Explorer to our tow bar, and were on the highway before 9.

We retraced our route back up US Highway 27 through the Everglades to South Bay, around Lake Okeechobee, and through Clewiston, Moore Haven, and Lake Placid. Just before Sebring, we turned west on State Route 66 and followed it 25 miles to Zolfo Springs. From there it was only a mile or two north on US Highway 17 to the campground.

Most of the way we ran in a light mist that occasionally became rain, and under a heavy overcast. It’s harvest season in Florida, and we passed trailers being loaded with oranges all along the way.

In  Moore Haven, the police were escorting a long convoy of trucks and tractors pulling sugar cane trailers in the right lane.

US 27 is a well maintained divided four lane highway most of the way. When we left it, State Route 66 was a two lane road, but in good condition. You can see in these pictures what a gray, ugly day it was.

We got lucky and the rain stopped a few minutes before we arrived at the campground, so I didn’t have to park and get hooked up in the rain. The campground has 200 full hookup 30/50 amp electric RV sites, and another 200 30 amp water and sewer only sites. We had been told that this time of year, the full hookup sites go fast, and to expect to have to settle for one of the water and electric sites. But we got lucky again, when we arrived they still had several full hookup sites available to choose from.

The campground has both open sites, and sites in the beautiful live oak trees that we see all over the south. All sites are back-ins, on grass. We chose an open site to be sure we could get a good signal on our rooftop TV dish.   

Under our Thousand Trails membership, we are entitled to 50 nights camping a year for our dues, and any nights over that are $5/night. This is the first year that we have gone over 50 nights, but we’re more than happy to pay $5 a night for a full hookup campsite in Florida, even if it is cold and dreary!

The trip was 175 miles, and we arrived at the campground at 1 p.m. Once we were settled in and hooked up, we ran into town for an early dinner, then stopped at Sweetbay grocery store so Miss Terry  could pick up some things.

While Terry was in the store, I talked to Greg White on the phone. Before he ran away from home to become an RV gypsy, Greg ran an IT computer company, and when he’s back home in Houston, Texas, where he and Jan are now, he keeps busy solving problems for his former customers. Greg and I were talking about all of the ways people can get into trouble online, and we decided that he should do a seminar on the Do’s & Don’ts of Computer Security at our Arizona Gypsy Gathering rally in Yuma, in March. I’m going to arrange the schedule so I can sit in on that one!

Looking at the 10 day weather forecast, it looks like we may have a couple of decent days this week, with temperatures in the 70s, and then another cold front will drop it back into the 60s. I think the only way I’m going to see bikinis this winter is if I buy a calendar!

Thought For The Day – A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

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Today is moving day for us. We are leaving the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve this morning, headed for Paradise Island RV Resort in Fort Lauderdale, about 220 miles south.

The “quicker” route is to get over to Interstate 95 and take the superslab south, but what fun is that? If you’ve been on one interstate highway, you’ve been on all of them. We prefer the “blue highways” that show us small town America, and where we can travel at a slower pace.

So instead, we are going to take U.S. 27 south, through Sebring and around Lake Okeechobee, hook up with Interstate 595, and take it to 95. Then it’s just a hop, skip, and a jump north to the campground.

Our friends Jim and Chris Guld, from Geeks on Tour, are staying at Paradise Island this winter, and we’re looking forward to spending some time with them, away from all of the hectic activity of an RV rally, which is usually where we cross paths.

We have had a very good time here at the Thousand Trails, and this is one campground we’ll be returning to again. Now that we have used up our allotted 50 nights per year that we get “free” under our Thousand Trails membership, any other stays are $5/night, which is a darned good price on a full hookup RV site! We do have to come back to this area in the next few weeks to have the nice folks at Camping Connection do our latest Norcold refrigerator recall, but during the winter the Thousand Trails keeps pretty full, so I don’t know if they will have an opening for us.

A while back, a gentleman named Ladd Lougee, an outdoor and fitness enthusiast, wrote me that he came up with the idea for a better travel chair when he was camping in the Mammoth Lakes area of the California Sierra Nevada Mountains. Ladd said that after squirming around in his chair in discomfort for the hundredth time, he asked if anyone else had a sore back from using the typical camping chairs. He was very surprised to hear that nearly everyone else in his group did as well. So Ladd said he set out to build a better chair, the result being the Strongback Chair.

Okay, a lot of companies and people contact me, telling me that they have come up with the newest and best whatever, from computers to books to widgets, and I have to admit that usually I’m a skeptic. Most of these outfits simply send me an e-mail press release and expect me to publish it, but I don’t do things that way.

I write back and tell them that if they want to send me one of their products to review I’ll look at it. But, they must be willing to accept the fact that if it is good I’ll say so, and if I think it’s crap, I’ll say that too. I seldom hear back from them after that. I’m never sure if they are just looking for free publicity, or if they don’t have enough faith in their product to let me try it. But Ladd offered to send me a chair to evaluate in his first e-mail. That’s always a good sign.

The chair arrived a couple of days ago, and after sitting in it a while, folding it up and stowing it in its nylon carry bag, and pulling it out to sit on again on different types of terrain, from grass and gravel to blacktop, it is absolutely the most comfortable camp chair I have ever sat in.

The chair is big and roomy, it has solid padded arm rests, a drink holder, and can hold up to 300 pounds, and best of all, its design incorporates a frame-integrated lumbar support that gives my lower back excellent support. Strongback Chairs come in two models, the Zen for smaller people, and the big, roomy Elite model that Ladd sent me.

My only problem with the chair is that Miss Terry likes it just as much as I do, so now we have to fight over it! Or maybe there’s going to be a new chair in her Christmas stocking this year?

Thought For The Day – Stop global whining!

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Yesterday was a short travel day for us. In fact, one of the shortest we’ve had in a very long time.

We enjoyed our time at The Great Outdoors in Titusville, Florida, and I took a photo of our Winnebago in Peter and Connie Bradish”s lot before I started unhooking our campground utilities in preparation for leaving.

This is a very upscale RV resort, where you can buy your own very nicely groomed lot, and enjoy every amenity you could imagine.

The resort has several small lakes, and I’m told the fishing in them is good, but I never got the opportunity to check that out.

The resort even has its own church! As you can see, most of the homeowners drive their golf carts everywhere, even to church!

We left The Great Outdoors just after 10 a.m., traveled south to the next exit on Interstate 95, and took State Route 407 a short distance until it merged with State Toll Route 528, which took us west around the south side of the Orlando metropolitan area to Interstate 4. We traveled just a mile or two south on Interstate 4, exited onto U.S. Highway 192, then took it west a few miles to U.S. Highway 27, where we turned north a couple of miles to the Orlando Thousand Trails preserve. Peter Bradish had given us the directions, and they were perfect. 

Well, the directions Peter gave us were perfect. The directions we got from our GPS were not so perfect. We had entered the address of the Thousand Trails into our GPS, so we wouldn’t miss the turn into it, because somebody had told me that a condominium complex next door hid the sign until you were right on top of it. According to the GPS, we had over a mile to go, when I noticed the Thousand Trails sign, which was indeed hard to see. By then it was too late to make the turn.

U.S. 27 through here is a wide six lane divided highway, with designated left turn lanes. We drove a couple of miles, looking for a place to turn around, but I wasn’t sure that we could make a U-turn with the van in tow. I finally pulled into a left turn lane, and decided it would be too tight to make the U-turn, and the last thing I wanted to do was be jackknifed across three lanes of busy U.S. highway, even on a Sunday morning. There was a divided driveway leading into a housing subdivision on the far side of the road, and I told Terry I was going to pull into the subdivision instead, and we’d unhook the van from the tow bar and get pointed back in the right direction.

It wasn’t until we had pulled into the driveway that we discovered that it was a gated community. So there we were, with a locked gate in front of us, two cars that had pulled in behind us, and no place to turn around. Can you say “oh crap?”

Fortunately, the fellow in the first car gave us the gate code, we punched it in, and the gates swung open. I pulled in, parked along the curb, we unhooked the van, and got the heck out of there. A GPS is a handy tool, but never trust one completely.

We had never stayed at this Thousand Trails before, but I have to say that we’re impressed. The 255 acre campground has 850 full hookup RV sites, a swimming pool, activity center, and a 60 acre spring fed lake. The property also backs up to Lake Hancock, a large lake that is supposed to be home to some massive trophy bass.

We choose a site on a corner at the end of a road, with some trees on one side of us, a pasture behind us, and the sites next to us and across the street are empty. Gee, no neighbors. Maybe I’ll just run around in my BVDs. No, Miss Terry says maybe I won’t.

A sky writer was posting this message for us when we got into our RV site. Isn’t that nice? I love you too.

Even with the unexpected detour caused by the GPS, we drove exactly 70 miles, and I was in the office at the Thousand Trails registering by noon. That’s a short travel day!

Once we were parked and hooked up, we drove down to the campground’s boat launch at Lake Hancock, to check things out. It was windy and chilly, but the weather is supposed to improve by mid-week, and getting out on the water is a priority for us. Our kayaks haven’t been wet in over a year, and we need to correct that.

I bet some whopper bass live in these lily pads!

The lake isn’t home to just big bass. I don’t think I’ll be dangling my toes in the water!

Terry and I walked out on the floating dock, and we heard a loud thumping sound and a big splash of water in this little lagoon. Then several fish jumped. We didn’t see the gator, but we knew he was there.

We’re looking forward to doing some relaxing here, getting some paddling in, and I may just buy me a fishing rod and a license, and see if I can tempt one of those big bass to bite!

Thought For The Day – A bargain is something you can’t use, at a price you can’t resist.

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